Yucatan: Mountaineer winner's Cinderella story

On WV Derby Day, I paid scant attention to Yucatan, a five-year-old Favorite Trick gelding, who won Mountaineer's $125,000 Harvey Arneault Memorial Breeders’ Cup Stakes. His performance in the prep race for the stakes (an allowance on July 18) looked pretty dismal, and even though I suspected the favorite Gaff would disappoint in the 6f race, I looked instead to P. Kerney and Wild Tale for my exacta. (As usual, my picks came in 2nd and 3rd.)

It’s a shame that the Lexington Herald-Leader didn’t publish “Discarded gelding blooms into retirement fund” before the race, because it’s the kind of article that would have led me to root for him to win.

Turns out that Yucatan was sold to a 73-year-old blacksmith and his wife for $1,500 and the cancellation of his shoeing bill. The couple, LeRoy and Sandie Simon, lost everything in a house fire two years ago. Last year, they got Yucatan – and now, they have a three-times stakes winner who’s been in the money 13 times in 21 starts with earnings of more than $300,000.

That must have been some shoeing bill. Maybe glass slippers?

(By the way, you can visit The $2 Window for a photo of Yucatan winning the Harvey Arneault Memorial Breeders' Cup.)